In Chicago last season the Federal Theatre Project launched the big moneymaker of its brief career with a rousing, all-Negro Swing Mikado. In Chicago last week an all-Negro cast kicked over another Gilbert & Sullivan lantern, hoping to start another blaze of swing with a Tropical Pinafore. But the show went over on its rich, husky Negro singing rather than as a shagging Harlemquinade.
Following Gilbert's script to the letter, but stirring ketchup into Sullivan's score, Tropical Pinafore shifted base from foggy England to a banana-bright Caribbean isle. Opening with a jungle chant that...
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